


like my mirror years ago

by djelibeybi



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Book canon compliant, F/M, Gen, Post AFFC, brienne has a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 19:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21258647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djelibeybi/pseuds/djelibeybi
Summary: Missing scene from "a rope in hand for your other man", though can be read on its own. Brienne has conflicting feelings after killing Lady Stoneheart. Jaime helps her figure it out. Hyle eavesdrops from behind the door.





	like my mirror years ago

**Author's Note:**

> So in "a rope in hand for your other man", Hyle mentions listening in to a conversation between Brienne and Jaime in her room the night before the story starts. This is that conversation, because I can't leave that fic alone apparently. You don't have to have read it to read this, though!

As soon as the terror and then the relief of escaping the Brotherhood had faded, Brienne felt the full weight of it like a stone on her chest. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Stoneheart; her poor, ravaged face, her white hair, her blue eyes. Lady Catelyn’s eyes. And Brienne’s sword buried to the hilt in her stomach.

Lady Catelyn had been so kind to her. Brienne remembered listening to her speak of her daughters, her own heart aching in sympathy at the sorrow in her voice. She had allowed Brienne to kneel before her and pledge her service as though she were a real knight. She had even asked Brienne to sing for her, without a hint of mockery in her voice, as though she were a real lady. And now she was dead, killed twice over, the second time by Brienne’s own sword. _How did I come to this?_ Brienne asked herself, over and over again_. I have betrayed Lady Catelyn to save Jaime Lannister._

Everything had seemed so simple to Brienne, once. Once, she had thought that keeping an oath was the easiest thing in the world. But nothing was simple any more.

The worst part was that she did not regret it. When she watched Jaime riding ahead of her, hair glinting gold in the sunlight, she felt only relief. _It was wrong_, she told herself. _I made an oath to Lady Catelyn. She was the one I served, not Jaime. I should have done as she bid me. _She could not fault Stoneheart for wanting Jaime dead. He had attacked her husband and crippled her child, and his house was to blame for the Red Wedding, even if he himself was not.

But Stoneheart did not know how he had changed, said a little voice at the back of Brienne’s mind. She had not seen him shouting “Sapphires!” She had not seen him lose his hand. She had not seen him leaping into the bear pit, or defending her against Loras Tyrell, or giving her Oathkeeper and telling her to find Sansa.

But did that matter? Would that have changed her mind? Did that erase of all the bad he had done?

Then Jaime looked over his shoulder and smiled at her, alive and safe and beautiful, and it was like a fist squeezing her heart. She knew then that she would have broken every oath for him.

It did not ease the guilt she felt.

By the time they had put a safe distance between themselves and the Brotherhood, it was growing dark, and they stopped at an inn. Brienne was wary at first, misliking the suspicious way the innkeep looked at Jaime, but the pile of coin Jaime gave him quickly brightened his expression, and the rooms he gave them were so warm and comfortable that she did not have the energy to object.

The others went down to eat, but Brienne had no appetite. Instead, she lay down on the bed and tried to sleep, but the image of Stoneheart would not leave her mind. Her face morphed from Stoneheart to Catelyn and back again, floating before her in the dark. Brienne heard the horrible rasp of her voice.

_Call it Oathbreaker. It was made for treachery and murder. She names it False Friend. Like you._

Brienne tried to think of other things, of Tarth, of her father, but everything she pictured turned back to Stoneheart. She was like a nightmare made real, worse than anything Brienne had seen in even her most horrifying fever dreams. _Who are you? _Stoneheart asked, those blue eyes boring into Brienne’s, Oathkeeper buried in her stomach. _Where do your loyalties lie?_

“I don’t know,” Brienne said aloud. “I don’t know.”

The tears came without her volition. She tried to hold them back but couldn’t, so she gave in, burying her face in her pillow. She had failed again, just as she had failed Renly, only worse this time. _I destroy everything I touch._ Why had she ever thought she could be a knight?

She had failed Jaime, too, even though she had chosen him over Stoneheart. He had almost died because of her. He had not shown it, but surely he was angry. She would probably fail Sansa next, if she ever found her. Her lady’s daughter deserved better protection than a stupid girl playing at being a knight, a great lumbering fool who had killed her mother.

_I should have let them hang me_. But then she would have failed Pod. Since when had everything become so complicated? Was this what being a knight was like?

A knock at the door startled her, and she sat up quickly and swiped at her face, cursing her girlishness and stupidity. “My lady?” said Jaime, entering without waiting for an answer. “You must be hungry.” He saw her tears and stopped awkwardly, a bowl of soup in his hand. “Oh.”

“Thank you,” Brienne muttered, face burning. She took the bowl without looking at him and waited for him to leave. Instead, he sat on the edge of her bed.

“You were right to do it,” he said quietly. She stared at her hands, so he put a finger under her chin and lifted her face up to look at him. “She was a monster.”

“She was Lady Catelyn.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“She _was_. They killed her son in front of her, Jaime. She lost her husband and her daughters. She lost everything that mattered to her. And then they slit her throat and dumped her in the river.” Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “How can you call her a monster for wanting revenge?”

“I call her a monster for hanging you. What did you ever do to merit her revenge?”

_I fell in love with you. _“I carried a Lannister sword.”

“For the purpose of rescuing her daughter.”

“She did not believe me when I told her that, and can you blame her?”

Jaime shrugged. “If she thought that you would lie to her, she did not know you very well. Tell me, my lady, were you wrong to take my sword? Were you wrong to search for Sansa at my request?”

Brienne hesitated. “No, but…”

“Should you have killed me when she asked you to?”

His eyes were burning into her. She could not think when he looked at her like that. “No, but…”

“Should I have killed the Mad King?”

She blinked. “What? It’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same.” His voice was sharp. “I swore an oath to him. I broke it. I killed him. Was I wrong to do that?”

She was too tired for this conversation. She needed energy to talk to Jaime. He made her thoughts trip over each other. “Jaime…”

His eyes were green fire. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our conversation in the bathtub. That was the only time I told that tale to anyone. I would hate to think that you were too busy marvelling at my naked body to listen.”

She flushed. “Of course I remember.”

“Then tell me. Was I wrong?”

She remembered him in the bathtub, his haunted face, steam rising from his body. The water cooling around her as she stared at him and saw him, truly saw him, for the first time. By the time he had finished his tale she was already half in love with him.

“No,” she whispered. “You weren’t.”

His eyes travelled over her face, filled with some emotion that she could not name. For a moment, everything else disappeared. She forgot Stoneheart, forgot Hyle and Pod, forgot her vows, forgot the bite on her cheek. There was nothing in the world but Jaime, looking at her, sitting so close she could feel the warmth of him. She had the vague thought that she would go through it all again, and happily, if it meant that she could sit here like this and be looked at by him, so fiercely, as if she were the only thing that existed in the world.

Suddenly he bent his head and kissed her hand, and she felt it in every inch of her body.

“And neither were you,” he murmured against her hand. He lifted his head, but kept his grip on her hand, so tight it almost hurt. “Let that be the end of it.”

She felt a small weight lift from her shoulders. She wanted to kiss him, wanted to wrap her arms around him, wanted to tell him she loved him. She had never felt anything so deeply in her life. Instead, she nodded and took her hand away.

There was a noise from the corridor, and Jaime turned and frowned at the door, which had been left ajar. He crossed the room and peered out into the corridor before closing it. Brienne flexed her hand, already missing his touch. It was pathetic, she knew, but just at that moment she could not bring herself to care.

“We may have had an eavesdropper,” Jaime informed her as he sat back down on the bed. Suddenly the humour was back in his eyes, the heaviness gone. “He was gone before I could catch him, but I have my suspicions. Tell me, how did you come across this Hyle Hunt?”

Brienne sighed. She felt much lighter now, but she was still in no mood to discuss Bitterbridge. “We served Renly together. He started a bet on my maidenhead.”

Jaime’s smile dropped. “_What?_”

Somehow, the tale came spilling out of her. “It was a long time ago,” she concluded. “I have forgiven him. Mostly.”

Jaime leaned back, eyes glittering dangerously. “Ser Hyle and I will have much to discuss on the morrow.”

“Please don’t,” she said, though secretly she thrilled at the thought of him defending her to Hyle. “We have more important things to think about.”

“You need not worry about it, my lady.” Jaime patted her knee. “Now, sleep. You’re exhausted. Come morn I expect to see the warrior wench who dragged me around the Riverlands.”

She could not help smiling. “Thank you, Jaime,” she said quietly.

“Do not thank me.” His eyes went to her ruined cheek, and for a second something dark crossed his face, but it was gone almost as soon as she registered it. “Goodnight, wench.”

“Goodnight, Jaime.” She half-wanted to ask him to stay with her, but he had given her enough. She knew better than to ask for more than she could have. Besides, she did not want to hear what Hyle would have to say on the matter.

She slept with the hand he had kissed beneath her cheek. This time, when she closed her eyes, she did not see Stoneheart, and for the first time in weeks her sleep was deep and dreamless.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I didn't overdo Brienne's GIANT MASSIVE PLANET-SIZED crush on Jaime, but in my mind she is absolutely 10000% hopelessly canonically crazy in love with him and she knows it. Praying we get her POV in TWOW so we can see her thoughts about him when she's actually in presence, because she already thinks about him SO MUCH when he's not there. Like imagine a description of him in her POV. I actually can't.
> 
> Also, please forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes because my spellcheck is set to Irish (as in Irish Gaelic) and it won't let me change it back lmao.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think!


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